Malerkotla (Punjab): Raziya Sultana, one of the seniormost members of the Congress party is the only Muslim legislator in the 117-member Punjab Assembly.
Contested the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections as Congress candidate from Malirkotla, third time MLA Raziya Sultana went ahead in the contest and won the Malirkotla seat with 58,982 votes by defeating her nearest rival Mohammad Owais of Akali Dal by over 12,000 votes. Mohammad Owais bag just 46,280 votes.
She is the wife of a top cop Mohammad Mustafa DGP Punjab, a 1985 batch IPS officer was promoted to the DGP rank in March 2016 along with two other IPS officers.
At the oath ceremony, along with Captain Amarinder Singh, 75 who was sworn in as the 26th Chief Minister of Punjab for the second time, Razia Sultana was also sworn in as Ministers of State (Independent Charge).
Only six of the total 81 women candidates could able to win in the 117-seat Punjab Assembly polls.
In 2012 polls, 14 women candidates were able to win out of 93.
Three women each from Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) returned home victorious.
Among the lucky ones are Aruna Chaudhary (Dinanagar), Satkar Kaur (Ferozepur rural) and Razia Sultana (Malerkotla) all from Congress and Rupinder Kaur Ruby (Bathinda rural), Sarvjit Kaur (Jagraon) and Prof Baljinder Kaur (Talwandi Sabo) all from AAP.
With PTI inputs